McMenamin’s Hotel

Have I mentioned that our life is crazy right now? Geeeez… So we are house hunting, but the “season” hasn’t really started yet. Like in a month or so it will really ramp up and we’ll start seeing more options. We’ve seen some houses that are close but not quite right (I mean, one house the neighbor had a rooster…!).

But in the meantime while we are sort of house hunting, we are trying to get our house ready to go on the market as soon as we find something. So every spare moment I have I’m painting. Doors, trim, whatever needs to be done.

Last week I took Thursday off for a few reasons. First, I did some painting (doors and trim) in the morning. Then I went to Logan’s daycare/school for a mother’s day event (so sweet). Then I got a chance to decompress with two friends at Stoller Winery. We packed a picnic lunch and just chilled for the afternoon in the sunshine. It was magnificent! I REALLY needed the downtime.

Friday I got off work early to do more painting and then clean the house (and then we looked at a house–the Rooster House!).

On Saturday we were both up bright and early because we are both so stressed right now we can’t sleep. LOL (sad face) I went to the gym and then came home to clean up and get ready for a Mother’s Day lunch event at our house. My parents came down from Seattle. Michael’s mom and stepdad, sister and brother came over too.

Michael smoked a tri-tip steak on the Traeger grill. I made a salad. Michael’s sister, who is amazing, brought her famous deviled eggs and made a cheesecake from scratch! My favorite!!! Michael’s brother brought champagne and orange juice for mimosas. It was such a nice Mother’s Day lunch!

I was off the diet for the day. 🙂 I’m good with that. The food was so good! The cheesecake was to die for! Logan gave me a gift and a card. 🙂 After a little while, everyone left but my parents. They were staying the night to babysit the little Bug so Michael and I could go and relax a bit.

We’ve never been there before. We usually stay at Edgefield. But we had to pick up our wine (membership shipment) at Montinore Vineyards:

So I thought, why not combine both? So we stopped at Montinore first. Did a wine tasting, picked up our wine, then checked into our room at the Grand Lodge. We got a room with a bathroom, which is a nice treat! Usually McMenamin’s is “European Style”, which is fine, but I liked having our own bathroom.

We dropped our stuff off in our room and then got dinner. Since I was off the diet for the day, I got the fish n’ chips (small plate) and it was delicious! Deep fried carbs! YAY!

Then we changed into our swim suits and grabbed our bathrobes from the room, got drinks from the bar (I got a Mai Tai–channeling my inner Hawaii) and headed to the Japanese Soaking Pool.

It was absolutely AMAZING. We spent over an hour in the soaking pool. It was small, not as good as the Edgefield Pool, but still really nice and relaxing. We just chilled with our beverages and relaxed and talked. It was fairly quiet, surrounded by trees and bamboo. I needed time to relax!

We both slept like the dead that night. I wish I could have slept in. I mean, lately, since we have started the house projects/house hunting, the moment I wake up in the morning I am awake. My mind starts racing. I start thinking of all the things that need to be done. 🙁 I used to be able to sleep in a little, or at least on the weekends go back to sleep…not anymore!

We got breakfast, I got the smoked salmon hollandaise. I got fruit instead of hashbrowns and didn’t eat the bread (back on the diet!).

Then back home to work on house projects! So busy busy busy weekend. But fun!

So Michael and I both had to think for a second to try and remember which anniversary it was…we’ve been together over 9 years now but this September we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary! We must be getting old (or maybe it’s just baby/toddler/brain fog) because it’s hard to remember. LOL

We planned on spending our anniversary staying at Edgefield in The Gorge. We stayed there in January for my birthday and loved it! We loved the food and wine tasting and the hotel was great. We were bummed that we didn’t get to check out the soaking pool (because it was the middle of an ice/snow storm) and wanted to go back to try it.

I’m not sure if anyone else in the country is aware of what’s going on here in the NW, especially with Harvey and Irma and all the other natural disasters happening everywhere (!!!), but there have been tons of wild fires burning all over Oregon and Washington.

It is so absolutely heartbreaking and devastating the damage that has been done. The Gorge is a wonderful, beautiful, picturesque place to visit. I’ve been hiking in The Gorge too many times to even count. For awhile there, Multnomah Falls was being threatened by the fires. I was glued to Twitter and newsfeeds looking for updates, holding my breathe and hoping that the fires wouldn’t completely destroy everything. Thankfully the fire department was able to save the Lodge and Falls.

We are 35 miles from Multnomah Falls and the next day we woke up to our cars covered in ash, the air thick with smoke and ash. In the days after the fires started, there have been many harrowing stories. This one in particular is a good read and a GOOD REMINDER (even to me, who already knows “be prepared in the woods” and has ignored it many times) to be prepared for EVERYTHING. Read this. How amazing is this below photo?

We had plans to stay at Edgefield for our anniversary but in light of the wildfires, we weren’t sure if we should cancel or not. We decided to wait it out and watch the news and weather. I’m really glad we didn’t cancel (although my first instinct was to) because by Sunday (8 days after the fires started), the air was clear, the skies were blue, it had rained in the Gorge a bit and the fires were more contained.

It was so weird driving out to the Gorge and then getting of I-84 at Troutdale because 84 was closed! It’s been closed for a week and I think it will be closed even longer. We stopped by my aunt’s house to see everybody for a short visit (they were in Evacuation Level 2 — Level 3 was GO!) and then we headed to Edgefield for our anniversary. We were happy to discover no smoky air, no ash, and clear blue skies! (My parents were down from Seattle to babysit Logan overnight.)

We had a nice room — a King sized bed with three windows overlooking the trees. It was a nice room and super comfy bed. We were right by one of the 2nd floor balconies, which we enjoyed several times. It’s European Style, so the bathrooms were down the hall.

We checked in and dumped our bags and then walked around the grounds. We didn’t get to do that much back in January (snow and all) so it was cool to just walk around and see everything. There were several cute little bars tucked away in different parts of the grounds. Michael got an Old Fashioned at one of the hidden bars by the concert area.

We walked around a bit more. It was nice because you could walk around the grounds with your drinks. Then we did the wine tasting. It was part of the package and came with a tasting, a snack plate and free bottle to take home.

We picked the Syrah as our bottle to take home.

After wine tasting we changed and went down to the soaking pool! They give you big, fluffy robes in your room. So we put on our suits and made the short walk down to the spa.

The soaking pool was SO amazing! We LOVED it! It was really big, my photos don’t do it justice. It’s kind of like a lazy river. The water was 102 degrees and felt amazing. We were there about 6pm or so. We ended up spending almost 2 hours in there.

We relaxed in the pool with our drinks. I got a sort of pina colada and Michael got something called funkadelic. LOL We just chilled–for the first time in a long time. 😉

After spending two hours in the pool, we cleaned up and then walked down to find something for dinner. We ended up at one of the outdoor restaurants. It was really nice out, warm and romantic and there were lights all over.

Michael got a burger and I got the BBQ pork slider with coleslaw on it and tater tots. My dinner was incredibly salty, which was disappointing. Last time we were there the food was pretty good. I was disappointed with the food in general this time. But the atmosphere was perfect outside.

We shared a dessert, brownie with ice cream and caramel drizzled on top. The brownie was piping hot. It was really good! We were totally stuffed!

The next day we got to SLEEP IN! Until like 8:30!!!! I can’t remember the last time that happened and it was so nice!

We went down and had breakfast and then packed up our stuff. We checked out and then went over to the spa.

We had appointments at the spa but before that we got to enjoy the soaking pool again. We had the pool to ourselves, too! We spent about 1 hour in the soaking pool and then got ready for our massages. They had showers and tons of towels and robes for spa guests, so it wasn’t hard to clean up since we checked out already.

We got the couple’s massage. I got the relaxation massage and Michael got the cyclists massage. It was so nice to just unwind and relax. After our massages we got beers (for lunch lol!) and relaxed on the deck. I was pretty stuffed from breakfast so didn’t get food. The place was pretty empty since it was a Monday and after checkout so it was nice to just chill with no one around. We laid back and enjoyed our beers and eventually had to make our way home. 😉

Here are a few photos of some of the art from around Edgefield:

I’m really glad we didn’t cancel our trip and I’m glad the fires are more contained. I am crossing my fingers that the damage won’t be too severe. I think hiking in the Gorge will be closed for a long time, sadly.

It was nice to get away but it was nice to be home, too. I missed my little buddy. 🙂